Today, Tink and I drove up to Sam Houston National Forest to hike and bird watch. We stopped by the Red-cockaded Woodpecker Interpretive Site. It was really neat! The site provides and educational opportunity to observe the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Picoides borealis. There was lot of the characteristic nest of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (RCW) all over the site. When we got there we heard one but couldn't see it. The pines are very tall there, some of the tallest I have seen, with very thick trunks. Many of them were swaying back and forth in the breeze. Im sure they provide the RCWs with lots of good hiding and feeding spots. We stayed for about a half hour and I took pictures of the nest holes. We will definitely come back in the spring when they are supposedly most active.
The trees with the nest holes have a lot of resin coating many feet above and below the nest hole itself. This makes it easy to find the nest, even though most trees with nest are marked by humans with paint near the base of the trunk.
Its a pretty attractive nest. I can see why many other species of bird and other animals like to take over the RCW nest holes.
The nest holes with the metal guard are kinda neat. I wonder what the RCWs think of them? 
No comments:
Post a Comment